Teaching introductory economics: an interdisciplinary approach

Using three examples, this opinion piece argues that introductory economics can provide an effective context in which to introduce university students to interdisciplinary learning and thinking. The first example illustrates how input-process-output diagrams can be used to stimulate interdisciplinary thinking in classrooms when teaching the concept of production. The second and third examples illustrate how elasticity and the concept of circular economies, respectively, can be introduced using an interdisciplinary approach. These examples are suitable for introductory economics classrooms in which students gain a foundation of basic scientific and mathematical concepts

Addressing Health Disparities Among Homeless in Alachua County through Community-Based Participatory Research.

Introduction. In states such as Florida that did not expand Medicaid, a large number of economically disadvantaged individuals do not qualify for subsidies to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) 2. This leaves the health needs of Florida’s homeless population largely unaddressed. Nearly 48.1% of Alachua County’s homeless population has disabling conditions 16. This confirms a pressing need to understand the homeless population\u27s healthcare needs, knowledge, and barriers in accessing healthcare. Methods. We used a Community-Based Participatory Research model in conducting health fairs and needs assessment surveys, incentivizing participation, and providing education about existing resources. The surveys were conducted at two homeless meal service sites and consisted of 22 questions regarding access to healthcare, utilization, and satisfaction. Health fairs consisted of blood pressure, blood glucose, and mental health screening. Patient participation was encouraged through games, prizes and food. Results. Of the population we surveyed, 100% have income levels below $11,490, therefore all uninsured fall into the ACA coverage gap. Those less than 65 years of age do not qualify for Medicare unless disabled. Some qualify for Medicaid as shown in tables. Fifty-eight percent were uninsured and did not get any treatment for their illnesses. Additionally, 67% had no knowledge of free local healthcare clinics. Discussion/Conclusion. The majority of this population falls into the ACA Coverage Gap, lacks knowledge about free community clinics, and inappropriately uses the ED. Future implications of this research involve advocacy to expand Medicaid in Florida and enroll those who are eligible for health insurance. Vital goals include outreach by free healthcare clinics to make healthcare more accessible, as well as building trust with the community through continued outreach initiatives. A community-Based Participatory Research Model is an effective tool to increasing collaboration among diverse members of the community in order to bring meaningful and positive change to the health of populations

Pontine haemorrhage due to chondrosarcoma of the skull base

A young adult presented with acute weakness of right side of body and slurring of speech. An initial brain CT scan showed a pontine haemorrhage, however MRI done a few days later revealed a mass in the left parapharyngeal space. Histopathology of the mass revealed that it was a chondrosarcoma. Subsequently the patient was initially treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy and later surgery. Skull base chondrosarcomabe is to be included in the differentials of a young patient presenting with signs consistent with pontine haemorrhage

Pharmacist's viewpoint towards their professional role in healthcare system: A survey of hospital settings of Pakistan

In recent times, the profession of pharmacy has extended progressively in terms of professional services . The profession has been widely acknowledged as a significant occupation in the multidisciplinary establishments of health care . In contrast to developed countries the situation of pharmacy profession is underutilized in developing countries. Their professional role as health care professionals is yet to be recognized by the healthcare providers and the community. Objective: This study aimed to elicit the acceptance , experiences and perceptions of pharmacists towards their role in hospital settings of Pakistan. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among the pharmacists practising in various hospitals across Pakistan from January to April 2018. Chi -square test was used to analyse responses of respondents regarding their role in the healthcare system of Pakistan. The associations were considered significant at p-value less than 0.05 . The study was ethically approved. Main outcome measure: Acceptance, experiences and perception of pharmacists regarding their professional in hospital settings of Pakistan Results: Out of 500 respondents 396 questionnaires were returned completed (response rate; 87.9%). Most participants (92.2 %) reported interacting with doctors at least once daily, and that was related to drug availability inquiry (72.5%). 91.4% of the participants responded that pharmacy duties are mostly clinical nature. However, only 8.6% reported the duties of pharmacists are technical. 93.4% of the respondents deduce that pharmacists serve as an authentic source of information regarding general medicines. Furthermore, 87.4% of the questioned pharmacists confess that they find their training insufficient to deal with doctors regarding issues related to clinical medicine on behalf of the patients. Conclusion: The study highlights that the pharmacists in Pakistan are willing to perform their duties and provide healthcare benefits to patients. Pharmacists seemed sceptical of advanced clinical pharmacy roles such as intervening in prescriptions and medication therapy, consultations, prescribing. The doctors do not consider the pharmacist as an integral member of healthcare team. There is a need to increase doctor’s awareness regarding the role pharmacists. Therefore, it would be helpful if training and seminars are conducted on the importance of clinical pharmacy services in order to improve the pharmacy services in Pakistan’s health care system

A Unique Training Strategy to Enhance Language Models Capabilities for Health Mention Detection from Social Media Content

An ever-increasing amount of social media content requires advanced AI-based computer programs capable of extracting useful information. Specifically, the extraction of health-related content from social media is useful for the development of diverse types of applications including disease spread, mortality rate prediction, and finding the impact of diverse types of drugs on diverse types of diseases. Language models are competent in extracting the syntactic and semantics of text. However, they face a hard time extracting similar patterns from social media texts. The primary reason for this shortfall lies in the non-standardized writing style commonly employed by social media users. Following the need for an optimal language model competent in extracting useful patterns from social media text, the key goal of this paper is to train language models in such a way that they learn to derive generalized patterns. The key goal is achieved through the incorporation of random weighted perturbation and contrastive learning strategies. On top of a unique training strategy, a meta predictor is proposed that reaps the benefits of 5 different language models for discriminating posts of social media text into non-health and health-related classes. Comprehensive experimentation across 3 public benchmark datasets reveals that the proposed training strategy improves the performance of the language models up to 3.87%, in terms of F1-score, as compared to their performance with traditional training. Furthermore, the proposed meta predictor outperforms existing health mention classification predictors across all 3 benchmark datasets

Haemodynamics During Induction with Sevoflurane Versus Propofol Using Laryngeal Mask Airways in Forearm Orthopaedic Surgeries in Older Children

Background: To compare the hemodynamicchanges during induction of anesthesia withpropofol and sevoflurane in children undergoingforearm orthopedic surgeries.Methods: In this descriptive study 60 pediatricpatients, scheduled for forearm orthopedic surgicalprocedure under general anesthesia requiring LMAinsertion were included. The selected patients wereallocated into two groups; A (Propofol) and B(Sevoflurane) of 30 each. Group A was induced withIV Propofol 2mg/kg while Group B was induced bysevoflurane 6-8%. Anesthetic induction wassupposedly achieved after loss of eyelash reflex.Results: Compared with base line, both groupsshowed a statistically significant decline in meanarterial pressure after induction. Propofol group (A)showed a larger transient decrease in MAP comparedto sevoflurane group (B) (p<0.001). There was astatistical significant overall greater decline in MAPand heart rate after induction with propofol whencompared with sevoflurane.Conclusion: Sevoflurane provides slightly betterhemodynamic stability compared to propofol duringanesthetic induction